Confessions of a Yarn Addict

 

Confessions of a Yarn Addict

I blame my competitiveness, although it did start out innocently.

“Beth is going to teach me how to crochet”, my bestie, Laura, confided one day over the phone.

“That’s nice. It will give you something to do this winter”, I replied, then explained how my aunt once showed me how to chain stitch more than twenty years ago – and then walked off. Hmm, I thought. That was before google. “I think I’ll look that up”, I announced.

I promptly found a gold mine on the internet, and was quickly sucked in, watching tutorial after tutorial. I couldn’t pull my eyes away from all the wonderful patterns and colors. Being an artist, I discovered my personal paradise.

I soon found myself at the fabric store visually taking in all the colors before me. One skein of yarn became three, then seven. After that I may have lost track of my purchases. Every morning and evening I sat on the couch crocheting one afghan after another like a madwoman.  Weeks, then months went by, as the small pile of yarn in the corner more than tripled in size.

“What are you going to do with this one?” My husband eyeballed yet another queen-sized afghan as he looked at the pile of them I had accumulated on a dining room chair.

“Your nieces are getting married”, I replied without dropping a stitch.

The yarn pile in the living room grew exponentially that winter and we soon lost track of our chihuahua as she had burrowed beneath it in order to keep warm.

“I think your yarn pile is moving”, my husband announced as he walked by one day. We looked at the top of the small mountain of yarn. It was quivering, then a round chartreuse ball that teetered on the very top of it rolled off landing at his feet.

“I’ll do something” I promised as he rolled his eyes and walked off.

 I either had to stop going to the yarn store or find a better place to keep it, I decided. I had to do something fast. I ended up purchasing clear plastic bins at the hardware store. I’ll color code the bins, I thought. That worked until I had too many of several colors. The bins were overflowing and I needed to get more. Eventually those six bins became ten, then twelve. I refused to buy more, just on principle. My son would occasionally go down there just to count them to report the current total to my husband. Large shopping bags full of yarn were then stored precariously on top of the towering bins in the basement. My husband was afraid to walk between them, fearful they might fall on him and he would suffocate in the basement and not be found.

I was a full-blown addict by now, not only to the yarn itself, but to collecting patterns, pattern books, and the act of crocheting. I physically needed to crochet. Without a project to work on, I would sit on the couch at night with a hook in my hand, just twitching.

“What’s going on in the basement?”  my husband demanded one day.

“Uh, nothing. What are you talking about?” I cringed, holding my breath.

“Your yarn seems to be multiplying down there in the dark. Is there any funny business you want to tell me about?”

Shortly after that, my son became adamant I stop buying yarn; we were running out of room. So, naturally, I fell to plan B: sneaking it in when no one was looking. I would take my shopping bags directly to the basement and later bring them up as if they had already been down there. They’re men, they’ll never notice, I told myself. The thing was, the piles and bags were still growing and I was running out of room upstairs, also, with all the afghans I was making.

“I need to go to the yarn store” I announced one day.

“What for?” My husband peeked over his newspaper in alarm.

“I need more yarn.” I managed to say without blinking this time.

“You have plenty downstairs.”

“It’s not the right shade of blue and I’m on my last skein.” I waved the skein I had in the air.

“So, you’re telling me that in all those thirty-plus bins of yarn down there, you don’t have another one of those skeins?”

“They might be discontinuing it”, I insisted. “If so, I’m going to need at least ten skeins. I have this color in a few other unfinished projects, you know.”

My husband took a good look at me and let the subject drop. Thank goodness he understood at that moment that my sanity was hanging by a single four-ply strand of yarn. He rolled his eyes and continued to read his newspaper. Had he challenged me on that, it wouldn't have been pretty. Trust me.